Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Today I have a project featured at Viva Las Vegastamps! Blog that is part of the VLVS! and Clearsnap Bloghop. Using a wide variety of products from Clearsnap combined with the fabulous stamps from Viva Las Vegastamps! I created this colorful and Easter Tag.

Starting with a No. 8 Manila Tag, I spritzed tag with Gingersnap Smooch Spritz. It was quite intense and saturated so I placed the tag face down onto white cardstock and rubbed tag to offset ink to blank paper. This resulted in a mottled and subtle yellow texture which was perfect for this tag base. I stamped the rabbit first, made a mask for him, and then stamped the mushrooms and grass in Wicked Black Ink. I repeated the grass stamping over in Khaki Green.

Using a stipple brush and the faux airbrush technique, I added texture to the grass by pouncing in Khaki Green ink. I repeated stippling adding detail using Wisteria, Citrus Yellow and Lime Pastel Chalk Inks. I stamped the "hoppy Easter" in Wisteria Chalk Ink and added accents to letters with Plum Berry Smooch. Using a Fantastix, I added creamy brown chalk ink to the rabbit to give a soft smudged look. I repeated adding Orchid Pastel to the nose and ear, and Prussian Blue to the eye.

I finished off adding details to the mushrooms, grass and rabbit using all four of my "juicy" smooch colors. I applied smooch in Lettuce and Plum Berry to grass as well - which gave color and added depth to the details. I rubbed edges of tag with Citrus Yellow Chalk Ink to finish off and topped with May Arts ribbon and tulle. Have a "Hoppy Easter!"

Thanks
for stopping by!!! I hope you have a wonderful Wednesday. If you have
some creative playtime on Saturday - please join me live at 4:00pm EST {1pm
PST} in the Daylight Musings room at the Saturday Crafts Fair on
Linqto! I am demonstrating there every Saturday where I share my
projects, how-to's, tips and tricks and more. This Saturday is an Easter EGGstravaganza. The fun starts at 2:00pm EST {11am PST}. I hope to see you there! : ) Sb

I used the Faux Airbrushing Technique to create a warm, honey background to compliment my stamped and DIY embossed honeycomb. It might be a little difficult to see, but you might notice that my paper is stamped AND also looks embossed. Well, it is. I made my own embossing template using the stamp. If you attend my weekly demos at the Saturday Crafts Fair on Linqto, I previously shared how I make custom embossing template for my stamps {CLICK HERE to view demo}.

I started by using several Ranger Distress Inks to add color to my Kromecote cardstock base with the faux airbrush technique. After heat setting ink, I ran the paper and handmade embossing template through my Cuttlebug. I rubbed some more ink over the high points gently to accentuate the embossing, then stamped the "Six Hexagon Background #19076" randomly in places. Now my beautifully golden honeycomb background is complete.

I stamped the bees into the background using Jet Black Staz-On Ink and also stamped each bee onto clear acetate. I also stamped each bee's wings onto a Miracle Sheet. What is a MIRACLE SHEET??? It's a full 8 1/2" x 11" page of MIRACLE TAPE - a super strong double-sided adhesive perfect for making all sorts of projects, die-cut shapes and making DIY Washi Tape, too. On the backside of the acetate, I colored the body and head of each bee using a Sharpie Gold Paint Pen. I trimmed out the wings out of Miracle Sheet, then gently peeled off backing and applied to backside of acetate to corresponding stamped wing sections.

After burnishing down my miracle tape wings, I remove backing and dusted the sticky back adhesive with Ranger Perfect Pearls in pearl to give wings a glittery iridescence. I fussy cut each bee out of the acetate and slightly bent each wing. I adhered each bee to the background using Diamond Glaze - only putting adhesive behind the bodies and legs. I left the wings free to have depth and dimension.

To finish this off I'm placed this in a black wood frame from the Dollar Tree. It's a bit rough and rustic looking and will be the perfect home for my "Hive of Bees".

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Happy Sunday - I hope you are having a great weekend! Today is week two of the current Anything But a Card
Challenge... Challenge number 15. Are you ready for some bright and colorful SPRINGTIME inspiration???

You still have one more week to play along and link up via inlinkz froggy. Anything But a Card ChallengesChallenge 15 is "Spring-y"or spring colors, or Alice in Wonderland! Please click here to
head on over to ABAC and see more fantastic projects shared by our
amazing design team AND submissions by all of you. I have an altered/stamped project to share with you today.

Anything But a Card Challenge 15: For this challenge, we are asking for something "Spring-y"or spring colors, or Alice in Wonderland!
I know it seems like a strange combination, but it makes complete sense
to all of us creative types... I think it's probably the Rabbit/Easter
thing. I hope you are inspired to play along and I can't wait to see what you create!

Thanks
for stopping by!!! I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Do you have
creative playtime on Saturdays? Please join me live at 4:00pm EST {1pm
PST} in the Daylight Musings room at the Saturday Crafts Fair on
Linqto! I am demonstrating there every Saturday where I share my
projects, how-to's, tips and tricks and more. I hope to see you there! : ) Sb

There are six new plates on pre-sale for 20% off for a very limited time...the plates should be in any day now. So many great new images -AND- a "WHO-vian" plate with a re-issue of my blue police box stamp... just in time for the return of Dr. Who at the end of the month! Drop by the Viva Las Vegastamps! store to get the new releases and browse the VLVS! rubber vault.

Friday, March 22, 2013

I'm burning a little midnite oil here so that I could get my submission for T!m Holtz' Tattered Floral Challenge in. I have been in steampunk land this week so I made a tattered rose ring with a little metal bling in the center.

My little troll hands are really the best for the photographs but this is so gorgeous with layers of vintage lace dress detailing, tulle, burlap and muslin fabric flowers grunged up with Ranger Ink Adirondack Paint Daubers and Antique Linen Distress Stain.

I wired all the layers together. I had quite a long tail of the two ends leftover, so I twisted them together and fitted the end with a pretty, sparkly bead. It was the perfect length to wrap around your finger so a ring was born!

Thanks for dropping by! Wish me luck. See you tomorrow with the my Unscripted Sketches project debut. Have a great evening : ) Sb

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

To view last month's Very Steampunk Valentine Bloghopplease click here!

WELCOME to LeslieRahye's Hippity Hoppity Steampunk Spring Bloghop. Thanks to our fabulous hostess for giving us our fill of "STEAMPUNK" - which we all LOVE!! I am totally addicted and a TOTAL steampunk junkie now! Today I'm sharing a tag based off this month's T!m Holtz 12 tags of 2013 using the silhouette of the mechanical bunny stamp from Viva Las VegaStamps!

On a easter colored patterened paper that I grunged up and distressed - I stamped several Steampunk images to have a base then went from there with T!m's inspiration tag.

One more pix to complete the scene... and it's full of gears and metal goodness!

Thanks so much for dropping by. Please click the blocks below to visit the other fabulous stops on this special Spring Steampunk hoppity.Sb :)

Monday, March 18, 2013

Sunday has come and past...my apologies. Yesterday was the debut of a brand new Anything But a Card Challenge... Challenge number 15. Are you ready to CREATE and play along - this is a GOOD one!!!

There's two weeks to play along and link up via inlinkz froggy. Anything But a Card Challenges is a bi-weekly challenge and today, the Design Team showcases NEW projects using a brand-new Challenge 15. For this challenge, we are asking for something "Spring-y"or spring colors, or Alice in Wonderland! Please click here to head on over to ABAC and see all wonderful projects shared by our fantastic design team AND submissions by all of you. Today I am sharing my button fairy version of the perpetually late rabbit from Alice in Wonderland.**A TIP** The watch in the center is a collage watch face vintage image of Alice that I reduced using my ink-jet printer at home. I did seal it with a light coating of Diamond Glaze and then placed it in the bezel and filled with my Sakura 3D Crystal Lacquer and headed off to bed. I awoke to this blue blotto mess this AM. The Crystal Lacquer pulled all the blue ink to the center {go figure}. So my TIP - don't use Crystal Lacquer to add dimension to an EPSON ink jet print. I will peel it out and make a laser printed version and redux...but I couldn't wait to share. ENJOY!!!

Anything But a Card Challenge 15: For this challenge, we are asking for something "Spring-y"or spring colors, or Alice in Wonderland! I know it seems like a strange combination, but it makes complete sense to all of us creative types... I think it's probably the Rabbit/Easter thing. I hope you are inspired to play along and I can't wait to see what you create!

Thanks for stopping by!!! I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Do you have creative playtime on Saturdays? Please join me live at 4:00pm EST {1pm PST} in the Daylight Musings room at the Saturday Crafts Fair on Linqto! I am demonstrating there every Saturday where I share my projects, how-to's, tips and tricks and more. I hope to see you there! : ) Sb

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Where did the week go? It flew by like a blink of an eye. Welcome to Sketch-It Saturday with Unscripted Sketches! Today I made a quick card using some leftovers on my table using the new Unscripted Sketches sketch #202.
I have been making a myriad of GREEN projects and this was the perfect opportunity to use some of the leftovers for a quick card to send to a friend. The "LUCKY" is stamped from large Making Memory foam stamps using "peeled paint" distress ink and the embossed shamrocks backround is created from a single Inkadinkado clover stamp. I stamped the clover repeatedly with Clearsnap Colorbox green pigment ink and embossed with VLVS! Ultra High Gloss Embossing Powder. The top left corner is a scrap of cardstock covered in green crumpled tissue and embellished with a double layer stamped clover. All the waste goes to use and I am going to enjoy sending this out today to put a smile on someone's face!

What is Sketch it Saturdays at Unscripted Sketches? Every Saturday morning a new sketch is posted for the week. Flip the sketch, rotate it… create a card, a scrapbook page, a wall hanging, digital, paper, fabric, paint, anything your imagination comes up with! There is no right or wrong way, as long as you are using the Unscripted sketch as the inspiration for your creation! And everyone is invited to join in the fun... and post your creation on their page via inlinkz for all the world to see!

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Happy Sunday - I hope you are having a great weekend! Today is week two of the current Anything But a Card
Challenge... Challenge number 14. Are you ready to CREATE and play
along???Please click here to
head on over to ABAC and see more fantastic projects shared by our
amazing design team AND submissions by all of you. I shared one project last week - and - as promised, I have another project to share today.

There's two weeks to play along and link up via inlinkz froggy. Anything But a Card Challenges is a bi-weekly challenge and today, the Design Team showcases NEW projects using a brand-new challenge #14 of "Green, Irish or St. Patrick's Day."

Anything But a Card Challenge 14: Anything Green, Irish or St. Patrick's Day. It's
a BROAD challenge but it has so many options - surely you can find
something to inspire you: leprechauns, fairies, rainbow, pot of gold,
Saints, St. Patrick, shamrocks, recycle something (go green), Ireland,
iconography, triptychs, just to get you started! Or you can just do
something primarily in the color tones of green. I hope you are inspired to play along and I can't wait to see what you create!

This is a greencrafted project - one that I've had in the works for longer than I'd like to admit. I've had these strips of handpainted and collaged green paper leftover from another project. I quilled them straightaway into a shamrock and it's been sitting there for a good, long time {OK, it's been over 2 years} waiting to be glued and placed in a proper home. Well now my clover has it's home... a repurposed half of an embroidery hoop for a frame that houses a faux stained glass. The background is created from a painted paper towel collaged onto a recycled piece of acetate {leftovers from the imagesetter at my job} with Sakura Crystal Lacquer. I used the Crystal Lacquer to adhere the hoop to the background and when dry, trimmed to the outside edge of the hoop. To finish off I tied a bow at the top with two colors of green raffia and fashioned a hanger with some white tulle. A "Lucky Charm" suncatcher now adorns my kitchen window and a lingering unfinished project off the list, too!

I really love creative upcycling and I try not to let anything go to waste. In this project it was some papertowel. I was using a green Ditto spray mist to add a green patina to my hoop and most of the spray went to the paper towel I was rubbing it around with. When I was done, I just couldn't let all this green goodness go to waste. I added a little water to wet the paper towel and then wrapped three more paper towels around it in a ball and squeezed the color thoughout. I set them aside to dry and this yielded four beautifully green variegated papers for collage later. My hands are still a bit green - but my heart and muse are happy with the results.

Thanks
for stopping by!!! I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend. Do you have creative playtime on
Saturdays? Please join me live at 4:00pm EST {1pm PST} in the Daylight Musings room at the Saturday Crafts Fair on
Linqto! I am demonstrating there every Saturday where I share my
projects, how-to's, tips and tricks and more. Next weekend I
will be showing how to make a scrapbook page-in-a-box. Hope to see you
there! : ) Sb

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Welcome to Sketch-It Saturday with Unscripted Sketches! I'm so glad it's finally the weekend and time for creative play. With this week's sketch, I give a plain wicker curio box a little facelift by adding some aged nautical details using Unscripted Sketches sketch #201 and stamps Nautical Collage #19016 and Triple Mast Sailing Ship #19026 fromViva Las VegaStamps!.
What do you do with all those leftover technique trial backgrounds or stamped trials that end up growing into a collection of "Island of Misfit" Stamped images? I have a bin for all these scraps and a great way to use them is pair them up with an inspiration sketch. To see how I created this nautical embellishment for my box, head over to the Viva Las Vegastamps! Blog to see the how-to {please click here}.

What is Sketch it Saturdays at Unscripted Sketches? Every Saturday morning a new sketch is posted for the week. Flip the sketch, rotate it… create a card, a scrapbook page, a wall hanging, digital, paper, fabric, paint, anything your imagination comes up with! There is no right or wrong way, as long as you are using the Unscripted sketch as the inspiration for your creation! And everyone is invited to join in the fun... and post your creation on their page via inlinkz for all the world to see!

All are invited to join me live at 4:00pm EST {1pm PST} in the Daylight Musings room at the Saturday Crafts Fair on Linqto! I demo live every Saturday and I share my projects, how-to's, tips and tricks and more. Today I will be showing how to alter a 3" paintbrush - just like the ones I made for the Viva Las Vegastamps! Paintbrush SWAP.

Thanks for stopping by!!! I hope you have wonderful weekend. What are you creating for National Crafts Month??? See you tomorrow with my Anything But A Card Challenges week 2 project for Challenge #14 - Green, Irish or St. Patrick's Day.

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Good Sunday Morning!!! Today debuts a brand new Anything But a Card Challenge... Challenge number 14. Are you ready to CREATE and play along???

There's two weeks to play along and link up via inlinkz froggy. Anything But a Card Challenges is a bi-weekly challenge and today, the Design Team showcases NEW projects using a brand-new challenge #14 of "Green, Irish or St. Patrick's Day." Please click here to head on over to ABAC and see all wonderful projects shared by our fantastic design team AND submissions by all of you. Today I am sharing my Unscripted Sketches #200 project and I'll be back again for week two of the challenge with more fabulous work from the ABAC designers next week.

Anything But a Card Challenge 14: Anything Green, Irish or St. Patrick's Day. It's a BROAD challenge but it has so many options - surely you can find something to inspire you: leprechauns, fairies, rainbow, pot of gold, Saints, St. Patrick, shamrocks, recycle something (go green), Ireland, iconography, triptychs, just to get you started! Or you can just do something primarily in the color tones of green. I hope you are inspired to play along and I can't wait to see what you create!

Today I am sharing an altered glass block - the kind you can get at the craft store. It has a nice oval hole in the top with a lid to fill it with all kinds of goodies. This is going to double as my "GOOD THINGS" Jar. Until I start adding my "good things" notes, my Irish green feather boa is living inside which makes the backside of the block look pretty, too!

I altered this using Sketch #200 from Unscripted Sketches and this week's challenge had a special piggyback challenge to commemorate this special milestone. The challenge was not to make cards or something scrapbooking {if that's what we normally create with the weekly sketches}. So I decorated this block with some recycled green glittery tissue and textured packing paper misted with green mists. I adhered the textured papers to the glass block using my Xyron 510, a 5" sticker making machine. I love this thing!!! It makes adhering so many things quick, CLEAN and easy. I ran my papers through the machine to affix adhesive, cut to size, peeled the backing and placed. Easy-Peasy!

I stamped the word "Lucky" using my Making Memory letter foam stamps using Antique Lined Distress Paint and then added depth and outlines with my Distress Markers. The shamrock is created with UTEE hearts that I made from my chocolate heart candies I molded in Amazing Mold Putty adhered with E-6000. The stem is a chenille stem wrapped in green raffia {also adhered via my Xyron sticker making machine}. The shamrock and letters are accented in "Lime Ice" Stickles. Please click here to watch how I made the heart mold.

All are invited to play along with us at Unscripted Sketches. We have a weekly sketch posted every Saturday morning to start your creative weekend full of inspiration.

Thanks for stopping by!!! I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Do you have creative playtime on Saturdays? Please join me live at 4:00pm EST {1pm PST} in the Daylight Musings room at the Saturday Crafts Fair on Linqto! I am demonstrating there every Saturday where I share my projects, how-to's, tips and tricks and more. Next weekend I will be showing how to altered a 3" paintbrush - just like the ones I made for the Viva Las Vegastamps! Paintbrush SWAP. Hope to see you there! : ) Sb

WELCOME to the blog for sbartist (Susan M. Brown) - mixed media artist and graphic designer.I frequently lurk around in the dark creating art while all in the world are asleep. What will I dream up next...